


All I Need (All I Could Wish For)

by hephaestiions



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Angst, Depression, Ghosts, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, M/M, Marauders' Era, Suicide Attempt, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 04:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17257931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hephaestiions/pseuds/hephaestiions
Summary: It's Christmas Eve and Remus is dead.Or is he?





	All I Need (All I Could Wish For)

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is my first fic on AO3 so i ask you to be kind in your criticism. i loved this prompt because i have always wanted to do something with the 'christmas carol' trope but it just never happened because i had no idea what to do. there were some requests for appropriate 90s references and gratuitous poetry that i couldn't quite meet but i did try my best! thanks to the prompter and to the fest itself, i loved working with this one.

Christmas used to be one of the times of the year Remus used to care about.

 

He remembers his mother’s soft smile in the sun drenched winter mornings when her eyes would twinkle with good cheer, the promise of freshly baked cookies hanging heavy in the air, the aroma wafting in from the kitchen. She had always been soft, his mother, but never more so than on Christmas mornings in her cashmere jumper pulled down to cover her palms as she grasped a cup of coffee- perfectly brewed, just for him.

 

But Hope Lupin is dead now.

 

Remus recalls his father in his younger years, bringing home twigs he found in the snow on his way home, charmed to stay intact, a small ritual, meaningless to everyone save for his mother who had a vase kept aside for stray branches. He remembers his father pouring brandy into a wineglass they only ever brought out during special occasions and dancing to Christmas carols in the living room.

 

But his father is in the Janus Thickey ward of Saint Mungo’s, his eyes bright with the mania that drove him there. Remus hasn’t visited in months. He should, he thinks, tracing the windowsill with an idle finger. It comes away sooty with dust that he hasn’t swept in the last week.

 

His thoughts have been everywhere today, in the past, in the present, far into the future. The house is far too big for him alone, the rooms seem to miss their other occupant just as much as he does, a gloominess present in them that the drawn curtains cannot dispel. Every time he thinks of _him_ , of the person whose smile was bright enough to lift the cobwebs from the musty corners, his throat closes up, his breath hitches and his eyes threaten to spill over with the tears he has been trying his hardest to contain.

 

Remus looks outside the window, at a world far removed from the one he seems to be living in- a winter paradise specially tailored to Christmas cheer. He watches the laughing mothers hoist their children up higher on their hips, the busy young women with small packages surreptitiously wrapped in the folds of their scarves and the men with harried countenances as they try to find the last minute gifts.

 

None of it seems worth anything to him right now.

 

He can still remember a time, a week ago even, when things hadn’t been quite this bleak but it seems like that is a lifetime away. It’d all spiralled completely out of hand when he’d– he can’t bear to think about it. 

 

 

_“I booked dinner for us at Aline’s tonight, it’s been a while since you and I went out,” Sirius says, stepping out of the shower, towel wrapped around his hips, wand in his hand as he delicately spells his hair dry. He’s wearing a smile, eyes crinkling up at the corners ever so slightly, the dimple in his right cheek prominent._

 

_Remus turns away from his evident excitement, unwilling to acknowledge the dread churning his own gut into a frenzy and hums noncommittally. Things have been rough between them for weeks and he knows this is Sirius’ way of calling a ceasefire to their endless arguments about irrelevant minutiae._

 

_He senses the mounting tension in the air and hears the soft pats of Sirius’ feet on the wooden floor. The hand placed on his shoulder is slightly wet but it is comforting and Remus sighs into the simple touch._

 

_“Alright?” Sirius asks._

 

_Remus shrugs._

 

_“Moony, if you don’t speak to me, I won’t know what to do.” Sirius’ tone is light but the worry is more than evident._

 

_Remus turns over to face him and the concern reflected in the grey eyes is so intense, he is forced to look away again._

__  
“I’m not feeling up to much lately,” he says finally.  


_It’s the anxiety, Remus knows. It’s that feeling of being swallowed whole by a soundless, visionless mass of complete dark every time he steps out of the house, the trembling in his hands when a firecall runs too long, the almost deafening thud of his heart when someone pops by, unannounced. It’s been better for a while but it surged up a couple weeks ago after the last full moon had gone terribly.  
_

_He remembers almost nothing of the night but when he awoke, he recalls the way Sirius’ eyes had darted away from his, the way he’d hidden the bottle of dittany he had been using on himself as soon as Remus had blearily asked him the time. Remus had been absolutely certain that he was responsible for something having gone terribly wrong that night. He’d asked Prongs about it when he came over with the customary chocolate but even he had refused to divulge any information, lightheartedly asking Remus to ‘rest up and worry less’. Remus had felt like a right tit and completely out of the loop._

 

_That night, he woke up screaming to visions of a wolf ripping apart Sirius’ chest and the anxiety had surged up in his system, rising like bile in his throat, leaving an acrid taste in his mouth like cigarette smoke. He wanted the dreamless sleep, wanted it desperately but after his depressive phase in sixth year when he’d become practically addicted to the bloody stuff, Madame Pomfrey had warned him off it. Since then, his nights had been fraught by nightmares and his days by a restless anxiety that he took out mercilessly on Sirius._

 

_They’d never argued this much in the eleven years they had known each other. Remus knows its unfair, knows Sirius’ patience has limits that he’s stretching but he can’t help himself, using his words to push him away further._

 

_He knows when he goes too far, when Sirius stops shouting, stops looking frustrated, just goes completely blank. He knows he goes too far when he shouts about Sirius’ family, shouts about the way Sirius’ tastes don’t match his just because he was raised a spoilt brat, knows he goes too far when he refuses to touch the food Sirius cooks him._

 

_But he knows all of that probably hurts less than the scar on Sirius’ side that he keeps glamoured carefully. It’s still fresh and the scabs haven’t peeled off completely yet and Sirius favours his left side when he walks. In Remus’ own twisted way, hurting Sirius is a way to hurt himself and Remus feels satisfied when he feels the nauseating guilt creep into his stomach every time Sirius buries his head in his hands, hair obscuring the tears that run down his cheeks. And he knows he deserves it, knows he isn’t worthy of the way Sirius keeps waking up in the night to comfort him and put him back to sleep, knows he isn’t worth all of Sirius’ dark circles and chews fingernails. He’s still waiting, after all this time for the other sickle to drop, for Sirius to tell him he’s done everything he’s done for Remus out of pity. Not out of love._

 

_Bloody Merlin, he’s fucked, isn’t he?_

 

_Presently, Sirius sighs. “I know.”_

 

_Remus feels something inside him twist painfully at the quiet resignation in Sirius’ voice. Hot anger bubbles up inside him, familiar and comfortable._

 

_“Why don’t you go with someone else?” He sneers._

 

_“What?” Sirius sounds bewildered._

 

_“Every time I say no, it’s the same old story. The guilt trip is more familiar than your face now. If I’m not enough anymore, why don’t you just take someone else?”_

 

_“I didn’t even say anything!”_

 

_“If you had to say everything for me to understand what you’re thinking, you should be ashamed of calling me your boyfriend.” Remus feels a bitter smile curling his lips up. “Oh, wait, aren’t you already? Werewolf, half-breed, unfit for society, add what you want to the fucking list and put it up on the fridge for all I give a damn about.”_

 

_Sirius reaches out to touch him again but Remus flinches involuntarily. The pain suddenly sediments into something harsher on Sirius’ angular features and his open expression shutters in the blink of an eye._

 

 _“I have no bloody fucking idea what is wrong these days, you won’t open your goddamn mouth to actually tell me what the fucking issue is and every time I try to set shit right, it’s the same bloody story all over again. It isn’t my fucking fault this time, is it? I know how it goes, I know how it ends up on my shoulders anyway but this time, I haven’t said a bloody word and you’ve got your knickers in a twist,_ again _.”_

 

_Remus sits up, words rising to his tongue before he can cut them off._

 

_“You don’t give a damn, do you, about how I fucking feel? It’s always ‘let’s go out’ or ‘Prongs is coming over’ or ‘why don’t you spend some time with Lily’ and a hell lot of other ways you keep trying to make me someone else’s fucking problem. Bloody Merlin, Sirius, get your head out of your arse for once and let me set the goddamn broken record straight, I just want to be left alone!”  
_

_Sirius’ face blanks over immediately. It’s faster this time, the fight shorter but it’s so familiar, the complete lack of expression, the void in the usually expressive grey eyes._

 

_“Have it your way,” he says._

 

_Suddenly Remus is unexpectedly alone in the bedroom, a wet towel at the foot of the bed and the faint echo of the crack of Apparition lingering in the air. The steam rises in the mirror, fogging it over completely._

James comes to visit when the light outside is darkening to dusk, the sunlight streaking an orange path through the unlit interior of the room Remus hasn’t left in a week.

 

“Cheer up, Moony!” He says, customarily chipper. “Don’t you have any Christmas spirit left?”

His almost careless nudge accompanying the words sends Remus careening into the headboard of the bed. He hasn’t eaten in two days and he can barely hold himself upright when he stands. James’ expression clouds over and he looks away with a deep sigh from Remus’ glare. He thinks he hears a faint muttering under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, ‘perfect for each other with their fucking strops.’

 

“Christmas spirit, eh, Prongs?” The harsh laugh ripped from his throat does not have even a trace of mirth in it. “And what do you suppose is so cheerful about–” he makes an all encompassing gesture that indicates everything surrounding him, the gloom, the unwashed linen, the clothes that hang limp from his body emanating a slight odour, “–this?”

 

Prongs turns back to him and places a hand over his knee. His voice is almost fondly exasperated when he speaks.

“How much longer are you going to sulk over him? Move on or do something about it!”

 

“Move on?! Move on, James? He just _left_. He knew I bloody well _needed_ him and he just _left_ me here. I don’t fucking understand how he can move away from family so fucking easy but I–” He knows he’s gone too far when James’ eyes narrow.

“I don’t know where to begin with how much is fucked up in that sentence. You compared what you have with him to his fucking biological fuckups, you thought that him leaving you was similar to him running away from an abusive household when you saw his scars every summer, saw his eyes every time Reg looked away from him in the Great Hall, for fuck’s sake, why do you insist on making bigger mess of everything?!” James sounds incredulous, almost hysteric and Remus knows he needs to apologise. But somehow the only words that come to him are those of desperation.

“No owls, no firecall, not even a bloody tug on the bond–” his voice cracks on the tail end of his sentence and Remus hates the way he can’t hold on to anger, how it changes to the familiar feeling of self loathing and hatred. The tears come, hot and burning, spilling down his cheeks, over his chapped lips and he can taste them, their saltiness a reminder of everything that has made him lose control so completely.

 

James’ eyes are indecipherable behind his glasses.

 

“You know he needs time.”

 

Remus shrugs. “It’s been a _week_.”

 

James sighs. “He’s staying with me, you know.”

 

He had guessed that much. He had known Sirius would go back to the place that had been home to him before they bought this flat together for comfort and he hated that he had driven Sirius away. He could feel his control slipping out like a rug from beneath his feet, his hands trembling as he tugged on end of the duvet.

 

James gets up. “I’ll make tea. You sure look like you need a cuppa.” He looks back at Remus once and after assessing him, says, “Wash your face, come outside and for Godric’s sake, change those fucking clothes. It’s like something died. _On you_.”

 

“Probably my heart,” Remus mumbles and then cringes at how that sounds. James to his credit doesn’t say anything though Remus is sure he rolls his eyes after he turns away.

 

Tea is a steaming, hot cup of Earl Grey, just how Remus likes it. He knows James remembers from the days at Hogwarts when he was too tired to leave the bed after a full moon night, when the strong tea left under a stasis charm by the bed was his only hope of rejuvenation. He manages a half smile. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

 

“You are my best mate, Moony.” James almost sounds amused and Remus is happy that someone at least is capable of happiness in his presence. His heart clenches painfully at the reminder that Sirius isn’t. That he’s fucking driven him awa– Salazar, he doesn’t need to go down that particular rabbit hole right now. 

The small talk continues for a while, skirting delicately around the topic of Sirius and Remus’ evident depression. At some point it turns almost nostalgic, them reliving Hogwarts in their younger years.

 

When James finally says. “I should get going now, Moons,” the regret in the words is evident. Remus hesitates for a beat, words threatening to spill from his mouth just as the tears had earlier.

 

“Tell him, tell him, just remind him I miss him, won’t you?” He says finally. Prongs nods silently and leaves the room. Hearing the front door bang downstairs, Remus knows he is alone again.

 

_Remus gets out of bed, the room stifling and much too warm even in December’s chill. He feels suffocated but primarily, he feels lonely._

 

_Come back. I was stupid._

 

_He chews the end of his quill trying to think of what else he should add but decides against anything else and sends the message off with Pavlov._

 

_Pavlov comes back half an hour later with the message gone but nothing new attached to his leg._

 

_Remus feels something inside him break._

 

_He points his wand at a chest of drawers and they fly open, papers and paperweights falling unceremoniously to the floor in a heap. Almost frenzied, with a twitch of his wand, Remus raises a pile of papers into the air before blasting it to shreds with a curse. The next pile goes up in flames. He used more energy than necessary and when he puts the wand back down, his fingers shaking ever so slightly. The smell of charred paper in the air is panic inducing and he welcomes the familiar feeling of drowning beneath waves too big to be manageable._

 

_The air rushes out of his lungs and the black envelopes him._

 

_When he wakes up, he doesn’t know what time it is. But he knows Sirius isn’t here and doesn’t understand why he bothered to wake up at all._

 

He thinks he should go out. So he gets up and pulls on a coat, a scarf and gloves that his mother had gifted him years ago and combs his hair into something that doesn’t look quite like James styled it. He’s unsteady on his feet yet but the tea has done him good and he feels some traces of the determination that placed him in Gryffindor stirring in some deep part of him. 

 

But once he steps out onto the doorstep of the building, hands in his pockets and nose already pinked from the sudden exposure to the biting wind, he knows it was a bad idea.

 

People everywhere are walking, talking and Christmas carols are playing in the distance while bells jingle at shop windows. The atmosphere is cheerful and Remus thinks it is a mockery of his pain. Yet he swallows down the rush of unwarranted agony and purposefully walks towards Diagon Alley, boots crunching in the snow.

 

The Wizarding Community in this part of Diagon is small and every familiar face acknowledges him with a smile and a nod. Some try to stop him for a word or two but he says, “I’m in a hurry,maybe later?” and walks off with a polite smile plastered upon his face. He doesn’t quite know where he is going but he knows he has to get away from himself.

 

Which, he realises, doesn’t make much sense at all.

 

When his pace slows, he has almost arrived at Knockturn. The Christmas spirit here is all but non-existent, the shops as dingy and dark as always. But Norris and Chuck has a rather sinister looking green mistletoe hung outside that makes Remus’ skin crawl. He hurries away, opting to go for some old-fashioned, mindless window shopping at Flourish’s.

 

He walks back to his flat when he realises it has almost been two hours that he was out. He was outside, _alone_ , and he didn’t have a panic attack in the middle of the street. He wants to tell Sirius, wants to rush in, find Sirius cooking dinner in the kitchen and tell him that he was alright this time but Sirius isn’t in the kitchen cooking dinner, is he? The realisation hits him with a force strong enough to bring him to his knees and Remus feels wooden, made of brittle planks that might fall apart any second. The hollow feeling inside his chest doesn’t ease even as he quickens his pace to get away from the smiling mothers and excited children.

 

But when he walks into the flat, his heart stops in his throat. He can feel the magical signature in the house, he knows he knows–

 

He rushes into the bedroom, eyes wide and he stops.

 

It is empty.

 

But he _knows_ , he can feel it, the magic of his bondmate in the air, soothing, calming. Sirius was here and Remus wasn’t there for him to come home to.

 

He sinks down onto the bed, eyes trained on the ceiling, the hope that had curled itself in a tight loop in his belly uncoiling and drifting away like the wisps of his Patronus in fifth year when he didn’t have a memory strong enough to produce a corporeal one.

 

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, head buried in his arms, he doesn’t remember when the tears came, soaking his palms and his face, he doesn’t know when he finally felt like he was completely ready to just let all of it _go_.

 

He’s fucking sick of it, the pain every full moon, the guilt, the weight of the judgement he bears on his shoulders not just from the Wizarding community at large but from _himself_ , the loss of his anchor, the thought that Sirius isn’t coming back again. He can’t carry on like this any more and he doesn’t know what he is doing through the fog in his brain, through the haze in his eyes, the world swirling around in the tears that rise up and linger for a while on his lower lashes.

 

He doesn’t remember walking over to the cabinet in the bathroom where the potions are kept, doesn’t remember dragging out the box that had fallen into disuse a few months ago. It is only when he sits back down on the bed with the box in his hands that he realises he has Sirius’ prescribed dreamless sleep potions in his hands, the vials tinkling against each other with his movements much like the Christmas bells outside.

 

He picks up one from the box in his lap and holds it up in front of his face. The only light in the room comes from the bathroom but the potion is a clear purple, swirling around like the physical embodiment of a gentle charm.

 

He doesn’t think. He unscrews the vial and sets it to his lips, throws his head back and feels it drip into his throat. It feels like cool water on a parched tongue. He wants to chase the relief so he brings another vial up to his mouth and another and another until he loses count of how many vials he has poured into his system. When he falls back on the bed, the box falling to the floor with a crashing sound, he knows he has peace again after a long, _long_ time.

* * *

 

When he wakes up, he’s confused. He doesn’t remember what he did to warrant the uneasy gut feeling but he knows he didn’t expect himself to wake up. His eyes widen at the thought. Had he gone and done it then? _Finally?_

 

He feels like laughing. He’s had so much fodder over the years, the whole werewolf situation, the loss of his parents, the depression that has accompanied him like a dark cloud since he was a child, staring blankly at the moon that he despised for so long but after a point couldn’t even find the energy to hate anymore. But all it takes, all it takes to truly tip the wand finally, is for Sirius to up and leave, and doesn’t that make him a perfectly pathetic fool in love? He shakes his head, morbid amusement blooming like a dark flower within him. 

 

But then, how spectacularly had his suicide attempt failed that he had woken up again feeling this… he can’t quite place how he’s feeling but the best word for it probably is ‘fresh’. 

 

He gets up off the bed and walks around. The room looks… clean. It looks tidy and clean in a way it hasn’t in a week and the window outside is filling the room with light and warmth. It is morning, he realises. Christmas morning, he thinks with a pang.

 

He sighs. He might as well wash up and prepare breakfast. The thought of food makes his stomach lurch but it is Christmas morning. He should, for the sake of tradition, eat something he likes.

 

When he walks into the kitchen, a scream dies in his throat.

 

His mother sits on a chair at the dining table.

 

Hope Lupin is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Remus had cradled her dead body in St. Mungo’s Hospital when he had received an emergency owl saying that they regretted to inform him that the patient’s magical core had unfortunately severely lapsed in the dead of the night and would he please come to the hospital to see to the formalities. He remembers being numb as Sirius had held his wrists as his hands shook violently, as the tears were wiped from his face by Lily. He remembers visiting the graveyard almost everyday the first month and every month the first year. He still visits. Sometimes.

 

But she is here now.

 

She looks at him, her mouth pressed into a hard line and she _glares,_ a familiar sight from his younger years when he sent her favourite vase tumbling down the banisters while playing or when he came home late during the summer break, trudging mud into the cottage she poured her soul into keeping pristine. 

 

“What have you _done_?” She hisses, almost, brown eyes spitting fire, so familiar but so distant.

 

“How–”

 

“You _stupid_ , stupid boy. What in Merlin’s name were you _thinking_? Or perhaps, you weren’t thinking at all? You weren’t _this_ stupid when I saw you last!” Her rant is loud and angry but he has no words to reply with, nothing that accurately gets across the innumerable questions swirling in his head like a whirlpool of interrogation. He knows his eyes are wide and his mouth is open and hearing no response from him she continues.

 

“Did you think dying would solve matters? Did you learn nothing from me?” Her voice is softer, her eyes are kinder but she is still angry and her words sting.

 

“What do you mean? Why are you here? _How_ are you here?” He waits for the panic to surge up but it doesn’t come.

 

Hope rubs her hands across her face and the action is so familiar, so reminiscent of the family he used to have in the little cottage on the outskirts of London, that his heart aches for everything he has lost.

 

“I left behind unfinished business. When I died, I left him here. With no one else. You were living your life but he, he only ever had me. And when I died, you saw what it did to him. The Janus Thickey ward does not suit your father, Remus. It is not where he belongs.”

 

Remus knows what she means. His father, thick though he could be ever so often, stubborn and wilful, is not suited to insanity in any way. He knows people who even in health look like they would be better fitted to sunken cheeks and dead, dull eyes but his father in misery looks out of place, like a dead tree in the middle of a blooming garden in spring.

 

“Sirius has people.” The words come unbidden and they taste sour on his tongue, bitter with resentment and hurt.

 

“But he won’t have you.” She looks sad, sadder than he has ever seen her.

 

“It hurt,” he says and he knows how it sounds, a pathetic pleading, a justification for something that deserves no justice.

 

“And you hurt him right back.”

 

“There isn’t anything I can do about it now!” He shouts, voice rising a few octaves. “If you’re here, I’m dead!” He winces at his own words but his mother doesn’t seem to mind.

 

“You are in the middle,” she murmurs. “This is somewhere only you will ever be. And the choice will be yours eventually to… go back, if you will. When we come here, we learn things. We see things and we’re met by a choice. Some choose to go on. Some choose to go back.” She sounds like she used to when she would curl up on his bed, a book in hand and read out loud to him. Perhaps it was an effort to lull him to sleep but when her melodic voice took on this ethereal, almost dreamlike quality, he would be entranced, listening in rapt attention to every word that would fall from her lips.

 

“I don’t want to go back _there_. No matter what it does to him, I won’t. If I’m dead and this is where I end up, it’s still better than being where I was.” He looks away, unable to face the pity on his mother’s face.

 

She gets up and dusts her hands. “Keep an open mind,” she insists.

 

He stares. “I just saw you again and you’re _leaving_ already?”

 

She looks at him and then around herself. It appears to him that she is studying his kitchen, the evidence of a shared life, evidence of the life Remus created for himself that she never got to see. Something sad flits across her features and Remus regrets it instantly. Grief makes his mother look older than she is and she is so beautiful in the moment, he doesn’t want the creeping sadness of her later years marring it even for an instant. 

“I was only a messenger, my boy,” she says after a pause. Then she smiles, brilliantly, teasingly, “Someone they thought you would bother to listen to. Merlin knows you never did.”

She’s gone before he gets the next words formed coherently inside his head, leaving behind the achingly familiar scent of pine trees and dewy grass.

* * *

 

He looks down at the wooden tabletop and traces a pattern there. There are tea stains on it. The afterlife can’t take the memories away, he concludes. He still remembers the sounds of Sirius’ laughter, the smell of tea, the incantations to the defence spells he has memorised.

 

When he feels another presence in the room, he looks up.

 

There’s a ghost, or something that definitely looks like a ghost across the table, serenely floating in the air. She looks an awful lot like the Headmistress painted in a field of lilies in Dumbledore’s office though not entirely and her eerily fathomless eyes are trained on him.

 

“Well, my boy, it seems we’re to be company,” she says, far too spirited for someone who’s supposedly dead.

 

“Who’re you?” He asks and belatedly realises how rude it seems. She remains undaunted.

 

“Well, they call me the Ghost of Christmas Past but you can just call me ma’am. It’ll do you a world of good to learn some respect, won’t it?”

 

He winces at her maternal, disapproving tone. “I’m sorry, I really have no inkling of what is going on. I didn’t mean to be quite so–” he shrugs.

 

She looks very old as she considers his answer. When she finally speaks, her smile is sad. “I don’t think the living ever do, my boy.”

 

“Am I alive?”

 

“Well, what else could you possibly be?” She asks, kind smile firmly back in place. “Now I believe we have places to visit.”

 

“What?” He asks, unsure of how to take it. He doesn’t know if he’s dreaming or awake, dead or alive but there’s a ghost that wants to take him touring.

 

“Where are we going to go?” He asks when she continues to piercingly stare at him with no apparent forthcoming answer to assuage his incredulity.

 

“Nowhere you haven’t already been,” she says.

 

He contemplates this vague answer and eventually shrugs in acquiescence. He might as well cooperate, things can’t exactly get _stranger_ than what they already are.

 

She drifts over and her fingers curl around his, cold and wispy. There’s a feeling in his lower abdomen like the squeeze of Apparition and suddenly Remus is in the Gryffindor dormitory, the kitchen fading from view.

 

“What the–” He begins and belatedly recalls the elderly ghost beside him.

 

He looks around at the drawn curtains of all the beds and smiles faintly when he sees the one at the far end of the room.

 

“Is it still Christmas?” He asks the ghost.

 

“Christmas Eve.”

 

“Oh.”

 

He walks over and pulls the bed hangings apart and just as he expected, discovers four bent heads. There’s a lot of furious whispering going on and wild gesticulation. None of the boys notice him and he realises he must not be visible when Peter looks over in his direction and his eyes pass right over him.

 

“It’s nearly done,” whispers Prongs excitedly, pointing his wand at the parchment before him. “All that’s left are the signatures.”

 

Wormtail, Moony and Padfoot point their wands to the paper, each of them looking just as delighted as the other.

 

_“Inscriptio!”_

 

Remus’ eyes are fixed on the parchment. He watches, fascinated for a second time as Hogwarts unfolds before his eyes on paper, dancing footsteps appearing in abandoned classrooms, dormitories and empty tunnels. When he rips his eyes away, he notices the expressions of unadulterated joy on the faces of Prongs and Moony and he smiles when he realises he can’t think of these boys by their first names.

 

They will always be the Marauders.

 

He looks at Wormtail who doesn’t appear as delighted as he is awed, mouth hanging open slightly and wand slack in his loosened fist and feels something clenching in his heart. He hasn’t spoken to Wormtail in a while. He realises with a sickened lurch, _he never will again_. He watches the boy, his plump face and his weak chin and something protective sparks inside him, something that has lain dormant since Hogwarts came to a close. He pulls his eyes away and with a lump in his throat turns to Padfoot.

 

What he sees makes him sink down onto the bed in shock. 

Padfoot isn’t looking at the map.

 

No, he’s looking at _Moony_ looking at the map. Moony is hunched over, studying the details of a secret passageway and frowning slightly as though he has noticed something doesn’t quite add up. His bottom lip is between his teeth and the slight disconnect Remus feels with the scene intensifies when his own face performs something that has become so abjectly foreign to him. When he looks back to Padfoot, his throat tightens uncomfortably.

 

Padfoot’s chin rests on his open palm and his head is tilted ever so slightly to the side. There’s a look in his eyes that Remus finds himself unable to turn away from as he _watches_ Moony– something deeper, more intense than anything Remus had ever seen on fifth year Sirius’ boyish features. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t roll his eyes, he just _looks_ and it is eye-opening because Remus has seen this look before, he has seen it on his own face when he looks in the mirror after waking up in bed beside Sirius, when he can’t quite understand how luck favoured _him_ enough to let such a gorgeous man remain by his side.

 

He knows he is in love. And this, this makes him see with almost painful clarity that Sirius is just as much in love. Has always been, by the look of it.

 

Remus knows how Moony feels in that moment. He remembers waking up in the middle of the night, his cock hard from dreams of black hair and pink lips and grey eyes, he remembers hating himself for it. He remembers watching Sirius flirt with girls as he reads out muggle poetry to them and feeling a part of his heart break ever so slightly each time. And yet, right now Remus knows that Moony never looked up fast enough, never studied Sirius deeply enough to see, even for a split second, this _look_ in Sirius’ eyes because if he had, he surely would have known even then.  
  
Remus sees the next few moments play out in agonising slow motion. Moony looks up from the map as he points out a mistake and immediately Sirius’ features are schooled into a bored expression, something resembling his expression during most classes during which there are no pranks planned. Moony doesn’t notice but Remus does and now, Remus knows with even more certainty and clarity the true magnitude of what he has lost.

 

And he thinks he will break apart right there, in his old dormitory, the fragile strings holding him together ready to snap.

 

He feels a cold presence and he knows he is crying when he entreats the Ghost in a voice that doesn’t seem like his own to _please take him away_ , take him _away_ from here, take him somewhere where the pain feels less real. Sirius loved him and he’s lost it and if the afterlife will just be punishment for that sin, he’d rather endure that than go back to a world where he has lost this look on Sirius’ face.

 

He remembers asking Sirius to find someone else and he hadn’t meant it then but he knows that if he ever sees Sirius looking at someone else like this, he will die anyway. It’s better this way, he tells himself as the world around him with Prongs’ loud laughter and Padfoot’s smirk and Wormtail’s questions fades away.

 

When he looks around himself he is in front of a shop. He swipes at his face hastily with his hand, and berates himself for crying so much so often.

 

It’s the ring shop in Diagon, he realises when he looks around and spots the sign on the door thy have landed before. He has never come this way, he knows and when he looks around, the Ghost is floating behind him.

 

“Who am I?” He asks, unsure. He must be living someone else’s memories because this isn’t his own.  
“Don’t be silly, boy,” she titters, almost mockingly. “Who could you be but yourself?”

 

When Remus turns around, his eyes are caught by a hooded figure entering the shop. Through the clear, glass display window he sees the hood come off inside and Rodolphus Lestrange stands there, a travelling cloak draped carelessly over his arm. 

Remus doesn’t know why he is here, he barely knows Lestrange at all but his curiosity is piqued. He walks through the door, and it swings shut behind him silently as he comes closer to the burly man and hears the tail end of his words, “–your finest. My wife shall only have the best as I’m sure you’re aware and when she arrives, I wish for you to show her the collections reserved for–”, he smirks with a pause, eyeing the young and evidently frightened shopkeeper, “–our kind.”

 

The door swings open just as Rodolphus turns to leave and James stumbles inside, Sirius in tow. They’re both laughing and there are tiny snowflakes caught in the dark ink of Sirius’ hair and the sight makes Remus’ fingers itch with the sudden uncontrollable urge to bury them in that– he stops. He can’t let himself go there.

 

Remus realises where he is when his memories catch up with him. A year ago James had apparently dragged Sirius in to the ring shop to offer moral support as he picked out a ring for Lily. Prongs had after all been infamous for his impulsiveness, he thought with a smile, recalling the time he’d proposed on Christmas Day without a plan, with a ring bought on Christmas Eve. Sirius had smiled and winked at Remus with a glass of Shiraz pressed against his lips as Lily cried in James’ arms and James looked around wide-eyed before bellowing, “I’m engaged!”

Had it just been a year since that day? It felt a lifetime away.

 

Remus and Sirius had been bonded in a Wizarding Union not too long after James and Lily’s wedding. The wedding had been in February and the bonding had been in March. It was one of Remus’ only impulsive decisions but James and Lily’s happiness had sparked something within him that made him propose the idea to Sirius one very quiet night in bed. Sirius’ hands in his hair had stilled for a long moment before they tightened and Remus had been drawn into a long and very, very slow kiss that resulted in another bout of enthusiastic sex. And that, had been that.

 

That memory lingers now and a faint shiver crawls its way up Remus’ fingers and arms to the tips of his hair and he looks down to notice his fingers trembling almost violently. He doesn’t know why he is witnessing an incident he has no discernible connection with but if it is to make him ache with a bone-deep gentleness for Sirius’ touch, his warmth, his laughter, then it is successful. He watches as James surveys the collections and asks the shopkeeper for something simpler and a tad more elegant. Sirius nods in approval, evidently pleased with himself for having rubbed some semblance of taste onto James. The shopkeeper brings out a few more sets of rings, some dainty and elegant and some even gaudier than the ones on display.

 

They still have their heads bent over the rings when another burst of cool air signifies someone else’s entry into the store. 

“Evening, Diggles.” Bellatrix Black’s voice echoes in the shop, the shrillness of it compounding in the small area and Remus jumps, his fingers automatically seeking out his wand though he knows Bellatrix is harmless in this scenario even if she were to cast Unforgivables. Remus notices Sirius’ shoulders stiffen though he doesn’t look up and James places a comforting arm on his shoulders before murmuring something unintelligible close to his ear. Bellatrix on the other hand, doesn’t look the least bit fazed by the presence of her cousin.

 

“Madam Black!” The shopkeeper is stammering, “H-how pleasant, the M-master was here a while ago…”

 

Bellatrix waves negligently. “Yes, yes, I know, the usual threats about quality and whatnot. Now, what do you have for me?” She places a long fingered hand on the counter and the shopkeeper stares at it for a moment too long before he scampers off to the back of the shop.

 

It isn’t long before she turns to the duo and says, “So is it for the Mudblood or the half-breed?”

 

Sirius turns immediately, stance aggressive, grey eyes furious and wand clenched in a tight grip. “What do you care?” He spits angrily and James places a restraining hand on his shoulder. Remus is used to the mockery from the members of the older families, his skin has thickened over the years. But Sirius, even now is sensitive to everything, absolutely incapable of tolerating intolerance. 

“Now, now, I wasn’t looking for a fight, brother, just small talk and yet you’ve got that pointed right in my face. Did you learn some new tricks you want to show off?” She asks, voice dripping in mockery, a salacious grin curving her lips upwards. Her wand isn’t in her hand but she trails her long nails across the wrist holster in warning. “How’s that half-breed of yours doing anyway? Does he behave well in society? At least _our_ pets have some pedigree to boast of,” she murmurs, bending towards Sirius. 

Sirius clenches his jaw and turns to James. “Pick fast. I want out. Want to go home.” 

“Running away from a fight? You’re no fun, cousin!” Bellatrix pouts, almost childishly. Sirius ignores it. His expression is an almost ferocious combination of the clenched line of his jaw, the sharp rise of his cheekbones, the pinched bridge of his nose. Th tension brings out his sharpness tenfold and Remus is reminded of just how many edges Sirius has. They’re always rounded around him, claws always retracted but in moments like these, he is reminded of their brutal existence. 

They peruse rings in silence for a while longer, the coldness of the atmosphere punctuated occasionally by Bellatrix’ high pitched cries of delight. When James finally picks a ring, Remus notices him ask Sirius three times before Sirius responds, his gaze too enamoured by a simple gold band. 

“You think that’d look good on Moony, mate?” He asks by way of a reply to James’ questions about the ring he had picked out. Remus can see what Sirius hadn’t, the way James’ eyebrows shot into his hairline and his mouth worked slightly in surprise before a neutral expression smoothed over them and he said, “Depends on the finger, mate. Would be too big for the pinky.”

 

“Don’t be a prat.”

 

“Are you going to propose? Steal my idea?”

 

“Wha–? No! No, I was just w-wondering, s’all. No! I wouldn’t fucking propose, bloody hell, Prongs!” 

 

James’ incredulity is evident. “Why not?”

 

“He’d say no.”

 

James doesn’t ask anymore questions though he raises his eyebrows again and Sirius resumes paying attention to the ring James has picked out.

 

When they’re leaving, Bellatrix’s voice rings out. “When you’re bored, let me have some fun with your half-breed, won’t you? Let’s see if we can get him howling before the full moon.”

 

Perhaps she went too far because the next thing Remus knew, Bellatrix’s wand was in Sirius’ hand in two pieces.

 

“Keep talking and that won’t be all I break.”

 

The door clangs shut on their way out.

 

Remus stands there, reeling. Sirius wanted to buy him a ring?! Sure he’d vehemently denied when James asked but James hadn’t seen that look of longing and wistfulness etched across Sirius’ face, hadn’t seen the way his fingers twitched as though to reach out for it.

 

And he hadn’t, Sirius hadn’t bought him a nearly perfect ring because he was afraid Remus would reject him. Reject _him_. Remus wanted to laugh long and loud at the mere idea of rejecting Sirius because he just–

 

Fucking _couldn’t_.

 

The spirit deposits Remus at the kitchen table yet again and it’s a while before Remus can draw himself out of his thoughts entirely. His thoughts are a royal mess inside his brain, one overlapping another, epiphanies and regrets clouding his senses completely. When he manages, a little girl is on the table, right in the middle, looking serene and collected. Her figure too is ghostly, insubstantial, wispy and cloudy but he has a feeling that even in the flesh, this child had been something ethereal.  
  
“I’m the Ghost of Christmas Present,” she ventures to explain before he can open his mouth to ask.

 

“Right.”

 

She’s silent as she sits there, still as a statue. She doesn’t float like the rest of them, bobbing up and down in an invisible breeze. Instead she’s oddly steady, almost glued to the surrounding space. He stares at her a while, uncomprehendingly, the last few visions creating ravaging storms within his consciousness. He wondered how much more there was that was unseen in the past, how much there was that he just didn’t know. Remus has felt a lot of things in his life- incompetent, monstrous, despicable, depressed. But he’s never felt ignorant and he wonders for the first time if that is all he is. _Ignorant_.

 

Finally he speaks up, cutting through the silence. “Why are you here?”

 

She looks at him rather curiously. “They told me to come here.”

 

“Who?”

 

She shrugs carelessly. Remus knows it’s probably a dead end to probe. He’s indefinitely curious about exactly what controls this place but he’s only heard of the ‘they’ twice and no explanation about who ‘they’ were. He’s too weary to truly care and he wants to get away from this frighteningly strange child so he aks, “Is there something you’ve come to show?”

 

“Would you like to see?”

 

“Would it really matter?”

 

She tilts her head to the side, delicately. “I’m the Present. What you see now will not be what you see the next minute or the next hour. We could wait if you’d like.” She looks up at him, “For another present, different from what it is right now.”

 

It chills him. The way she says it, the way she talks so effortlessly of the time slipping away with each passing second. He nods slightly. “I’d like to see.”

 

She smiles and it’s faint, like a memory of something that once used to be bright and beautiful but is now faded and torn. She stretches out her small hand, palm up and Remus places his upon it. It doesn’t pass through like it would with other ghosts but there is something that makes him feel like he’s touching air. Solid air.

 

His eyes close of their own accord and when they open, he’s in James and Lily’s sitting room. There are voices coming from the kitchen and Remus looks over to the girl beside him. She tilts her head as if to say, ‘Do what you want,’ and so he walks over to the kitchen, the path familiar to him after years of considering this place a safe space. The sight that greets his eyes is familiar–James and Lily sit at the table, quiet and sober, discussing something in hushed tones.

 

“–broken,” he hears Lily say.

 

“He’ll be alright. You know how Moony is, Lils, bit of a nihilist, that bloke.”

 

Lily shakes her head and her fiery hair falls into her eyes. “Something seems off this time, don’t you think? It’s Christmas and they’re not even together.”

 

“Padfoot went over today.” James’ voice is subdued. “He wasn’t home. Padfoot thought he left at first but all his things were there. I don’t think he could stay there without Moony for long.Felt far too empty he said.”

 

“He shouldn’t have just up and left Remus like that!” Lily is fierce in his defence and Remus smiles despite himself. “He knows what Remus can get like, he knows what it can be like for him sometimes and to just leave like that–” she breaks off and shakes her head.

 

James says nothing. Remus expected him to spring to Sirius’ defence but he doesn’t. “They’ve been having issues for a while Lils. It isn’t as simple as we think.”

 

“James, if there was a chance that I would completely break down if I was left alone for a few hours, bloody hell, if there was a threat to my life, would you leave me for _days_?” 

 

There’s a crash and all three whirl around immediately. Sirius is stood in the kitchen doorway, his face pale and his eyes dark rimmed, sure signs of sleeplessness. How would he sleep, Remus thinks, concern enveloping his emotions immediately. His fucking dreamless sleep is still in–

 

Oh, Merlin.

 

Sirius’ voice is hollow when the words come, “What’d you say, Lils?”

 

Lily is hasty when she replies. “It wasn’t anything, don’t you worry yourself about it, we were just talking–”

“Remus could _die_?”

 

James and Lily share a long look. James turns back and says, “Mate, it’s not like he’d die per se, he’s just unstable and you know how prone he is to making shitty decisions when he’s like that, sixth year was a fucking mess after all and…” He trails off and the look on his face makes it obvious he has no idea what to say further.

 

Sirius rubs a hand over his face. “He isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t do that.” Something in the quiet surety of his tone makes whatever is left of Remus’ heart clench painfully and break. He _has_ done that and Sirius had apparently trusted him enough to never even contemplate that as a possibility.

 

When Sirius looks up, his face is bleak. Tired. “I know you don’t understand why I did it, how I did it. I’m not so sure I get it myself. But I just want him to be happy and I was fucking toxic so I thought I should just give him a goddamn break. I’m not what he needs.”

 

Remus wants to reach out, bury his hand in Sirius’ matted dark curls and tell him that he was exactly what he needed, all he wanted but that’s no use now, is it?

 

Lily is soft when she says, “How’d you figure that one, Padfoot?”

 

“He told me. H-he told me to go find someone else and I-I can’t even imagine–” He laughs brokenly. “Fuck.”

 

Lily gets up and puts her arms around him from behind, resting her red head on his shoulder, their hair contrasting brightly against each other. “It’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. Why don’t the three of us go to bed now and we can talk and you could catch a wink, hmm?”

 

Sirius shakes his head. Almost smiles. “It’s been a while since I could sleep without the fucking nightmares, Lilypad.”

 

It’s seems like the nickname breaks a carefully staunched flood. Lily buries her face in the crook of Sirius’ shoulder her sudden, gut wrenching sobs fill the air as she babbles, “H-he’s such a fucking wanker, he just won’t _let us_ care for him, what in Godric do we do when he just won’t _let us_ –”

 

And Sirius’ face is crumpling completely as he hangs his head, his hands coming up to cradle Lily’s hooked palms against his chest. “Merlin, I just wanted him to be _happy_ , I would never, ever want him to feel disregarded but it’s so hard sometimes because _all_ he does is push me away when I want to hold him and tell him he’ll be alright.” His words are punctuated by uncharacteristic hiccups and his voice breaks on almost every word. James isn’t crying but his glasses are slightly fogged over and he takes them off. His hazel eyes are far too clear to be entirely dry.

 

Remus feels oddly blank as he watches. His emotions seem to have taken a backseat as he silently witnesses his three best friends come apart completely, merely _thinking_ of him. Remus remembers telling his mum, “Sirius has people.” But these are Sirius’ people and even they are breaking. He doesn’t know how to move on with this knowledge and suddenly he is intimately aware of why they say, ‘Ignorance is bliss’.

 

The girl is by his side, watching and she holds her palm out to him again. It’s an unspoken understanding between them that Remus needs to leave, needs to leave _now_.

 

When he’s back at the kitchen table, his chest feels tight and his face is numb.

 

“What do I do?” He whispers, his voice breaking on the last syllables.

 

“I don’t know,” the girl says. “But if you love him, shouldn’t the answer be easy?”

 

“I broke his trust.”

 

“He broke your heart.”

 

“I did that too.”

 

“Then the answer should be easier,” she says and smiles endearingly. Remus wants to ask her to wait, to stay but he knows it’s futile so when she leaves, he closes his eyes and lets his mind go blank.

 

The cold enveloping him is dreary, dark. When he opens his eyes, a hooded figure in a black robe stands before him, floating. Remus panics, it’s a fucking Dementor in his kitchen and he has no strength to cast his Patronus now. But when the figure extends a skeletal hand, he realises he doesn’t need to cast a Patronus because,

 

“Ghost of Christmas Future?

 

It bows its hooded head in what Remus can only guess is agreement.

 

He wants this ordeal over, finished and so without thinking he takes the skeletal hand. He wants to know what becomes of Sirius, of his friends and the desire to know more is consuming him. The future holds answers that he’s desperate for.

 

The nausea is strong this time when he lands wherever he has been brought. When he looks around, he’s still in his kitchen.

 

But it isn’t his kitchen he realises upon closer inspection. Nothing seems right, nothing in its place, almost nothing he recognises except perhaps the cream, floral wallpaper. Someone comes into the kitchen and Remus does not recognise the woman at all even as she sits down primly at the table he used to have dinner at with all the familiarity of someone who–

 

His eyes widen with the force of the realisation. Someone who lives there. Did Sirius remarry? Merlin, Remus doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to stare at someone who’s replaced him, _fuck_.

 

But then someone else comes into the kitchen and Remus thinks he must be dreaming because Wormtail looks fifty years old here but is still unmistakably Peter Pettigrew. He kisses the woman on the cheek and she smiles up at him. He doesn’t return it.

 

“What is it, darling?” She asks, concern lacing her tone. “It’s Christmas morning and you look frightfully upset.”

 

Wormtail sighs deeply before he says, “You remember my mate I told you I bought this place from?”

 

“Yes, of course! Charming man. What became of him?”

 

“I’m not sure. But you do know why he sold the place, yes?”

 

“His bondmate died, didn’t he? They lived together?” She sounds slightly hesitant.

 

“Yes. Well, that bondmate was one of my very best friends and he died on Christmas morning. Or at least he was found… on Christmas morning.”

 

She raises a hand to her mouth almost automatically in horror and a shocked gasp bursts forth. “Oh, how perfectly awful! Christmas is of cheer and love, oh, what a shame!”

 

Wormtail looks around. “He died here. In the guest bedroom.”

 

She places her hand on her heart and looks around uneasily. “Are you sure we should be living here?”

 

Wormtail laughs softly. “If Remus became a ghost, it would be a ghost we’d be blessed to be haunted by.”

 

She doesn’t look completely reassured but she does relax somewhat. 

The unfamiliarity of the space that was once _his_ seems oppressive and when the spirit folds him up in its robe, in the cold and the dark, Remus can only hear a medley of sounds from within. Bellatrix’ high pitched shrieks, Lily’s sobs, Sirius’ heartbroken words and Wormtail’s soft, sad laughter. It haunts him and he knows he should be relieved when the sounds stop but he isn’t because the emptiness of the dark is if possible even worse. It settles in his heart like a physical ache, something that makes breathing difficult. 

 

A choice to move on or go back. Remus can’t quite believe there’s a choice before him. Can’t quite believe he has the option to never see any of them again, to sit in his kitchen and wait for whatever comes next. It seems alluring because that option also means escaping the misery, the monthly agony, the details of the life of the living that seem so extraordinarily exhausting. Unnecessary.

 

Or he could go back to the shattered world he left behind and do his goddamn best to pick up the pieces he was too blind to notice fit perfectly into the puzzle of his life. He thinks of his father in the Janus Thickey ward, absolutely beyond hope, thinks of Sirius’ broken sobs, thinks of James’ quiet grief and Lily’s fingers clenched in her fist to keep the tears from falling. Thinks of Wormtail realising he had no chance to say goodbye, thinks of Sirius realising he wasted whatever chance he had. And much as Remus wants it all to end, he can’t just let it slip from his grasp when he has the option to make it better.

 

Something shifts inside him when he realises he’s made his choice and that the choice he’s made is final, definite, binding. He knows he won’t have a choice again. Knows he doesn’t want a choice again because this time he won’t be leaving. And perhaps ‘they’ realised it too because suddenly the dark around him has noise again.

* * *

 

He can’t open his eyes. His eyes are shut together tightly and much as he struggles, he can’t even feel the muscles twitch.

He can’t move his limbs. At all.

But he _can_ hear and he _can_ feel every sensation across his body so when his perception catches up with him, he realises the pressure against his shoulder blades is of strong arms holding him, the warmth against his face is water and the voice in his ear is one he has been dying to hear for a week.

 

The litany of repeated words makes sense to him a couple seconds later, “–fucking wake up, wake up, _wake up_! It isn’t fucking funny, Moons, wake up, baby, please, won’t you just open your eyes, I’m right here, wake up, Moons, _wake up_ –” It continues in a similar vein and it’s brimming with hurt and worry and something that sounds an awful lot like love and maybe a little anger too and a lot of fear. And he tries, he really does to just open his eyes and make that fear, that hurt go away but he can’t and frustration builds up in him steadily. He hears James’ voice somewhere in the background, screaming at somebody, probably into the Floo to ‘immediately send in people’ because ‘suicide attempt that might not have been successful’ and ‘would you please hurry’ and ever so often, ‘my best friend is a fucking idiot.’

 

Remus agrees with that last one. Maybe James’ spectacles would be better suited to him because he realises just how goddamn blind he is, how completely ignorant and encapsulated he’s been in a comfortable cocoon of self-depreciation.

 

Sirius has his face buried in Remus’ hair, and Remus knows that his hair is soaked with salty droplets and he hates himself for putting Sirius through this. He just wants to open his eyes and hold Sirius while he cries, soothing him, rubbing circles into his collarbones as he weeps. When he is sure his efforts are completely futile, he lets himself go limp, opting to let the rigid tension he could feel within his mind seep away as he just basks in the sensation of Sirius’ warmth against his skin, his voice in his ear. He’s yearned for this touch for what feels like a bloody lifetime and right now, even though the circumstances aren’t perfect, he’s here, he’s here, _he’s here_.

 

The next few hours pass in a rush.

 

When the healers arrive, they push Sirius away, albeit gently, when he just holds on tighter to Remus’ body. He feels the Floo flames dance across his skin for a moment and suddenly he’s in a bed– a hard, unforgiving bed with cold bedsheets that seem to chafe against his back, the heightened sensations becoming uncomfortable. He knows when the Mediwizards pull his clothes off and dress him in something softer, cleaner, probably one of the blue St. Mungo’s gowns. He feels the prick of needles against his arms and the soft beeping of the monitoring spells cast around him. There are hushed whispers going around and a lot of medical language is thrown about that Remus is too muddled to make any sense of.

 

When the voices around him eventually fade away, he hears someone open and shut a door and suddenly Sirius’ anxious tones are enveloping him.

 

“Is he alright? It isn’t dangerous for me to be here, is it?”

 

Another man’s warm, heavy voice says, “Not especially given that he isn’t suffering from any open wounds or contagious disease. He’s in a coma but his heart rate is steady and in my opinion, when the dreamless sleep is completely removed from his body, there will be a few hours of natural sleep before he wakes.”

 

“How much longer?” It’s James who questions.

 

“Perhaps five or six more hours if all goes well. The potion needs to completely leave his system before we can even think of attempting to wake him up.”

 

There’s a beat of silence after which Sirius hesitantly begins, “Is medical history important for this process?”

 

“Not really, Mr. Black but if there’s something I should know, perhaps its best you get it off your chest.”

 

“Back in Sixth Year, he-he drank Dreamless Sleep almost every night. No one knew and he was stopped in the nick of time but he’s not supposed to take any Dreamless Sleep at all.”

 

The healer sighs, “In that case Mr. Black, he will suffer from incredibly severe withdrawal eventually but it will not currently affect his recovery. Needless to say, it is extremely unlikely he should survive another similar situation.” 

The sharp hissing breath Sirius draws in is loud.

 

The hours pass. 

James pops back to fetch some food but Sirius stays seated on a chair beside Remus’ bed, holding his hand. The warm pressure against his arm is comfortable and Remus knows it’s not going to disappear this time. Sometimes Sirius talks. Remus isn’t sure if he’s meant to hear the ardent apologies and the bursts of anger or feel the tightening grip against his palm but he does.

 

Sirius is talking now.

 

“It’s been so long, Moons, why won’t you _just wake up_ , pretty please, just open your fucking eyes for me, baby. How could you even think of leaving me, how the fuck could you even _imagine_ just leaving me here and fucking off?!” He stays silent for a few minutes before saying, “But that’s what I did to you, wasn’t it? Fuck, baby, I’m so fucking sorry, I swear I’ll make it up to you, I’ll fucking worship you, you’re worth so much Moony, I don’t even know–” He doesn’t continue, just breathes heavily and deeply. His fingers flex in Remus’.

 

It starts in his toes.

 

There’s a sudden rush of electricity that jolts across his feet and Remus unthinkingly shifts his feet to relieve himself of the sensation when it hits him, _he can move_.

 

Immediately he tries to open his eyes, see the world but they stay stubbornly shut. The sharp jolts of spiking current traverse along his entire body– his spine, his abdomen, his legs. Eventually it electrifies the tips of his fingers and involuntarily the conjoined fingers of his right hand move against Sirius’ palm.

 

Sirius immediately stops talking. Remus can imagine his widening eyes, his open mouth and he can feel his own lips twitching in his effort to smile. Suddenly reality crashes into Sirius and he bends over, his breath harsh and his words fast, “Baby? Baby, are you up? Does it hurt? Fuck, Moons, I was fucking _terrified_ , Moons, please, open your eyes, don’t let this be false hope for fuck’s sake, Moons, come on, come _on_ –”

 

Remus knows there will be Aurors to answer and Healers to talk to. He knows when the shock of the suicide attempt wears off, he’ll receive a frightening dressing down from all of his friends. But for now, Sirius’ breath warm against his lips and his hand curled tightly against his fingers, the urge to look into those grey eyes that have captured his heart is so powerful that for a moment he can barely breathe.

 

When his eyes flutter open and the world swims in and out of focus, the soft press of Padfoot’s lips against his, an impulsive action born of a desperation Remus feels in his own gut tastes like salvation.

 

It’s Christmas morning and he’s been reborn. For now, it is enough.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ah! the ending was slightly self indulgent because i love my weepy boys (they cried so much in this ahhhh) but i really hope everyone likes it. thanks for the read!


End file.
